DAY 2

-THE SECOND DAY-

08/03/2020

We met at 9:30 in front of the Atlantic Language school. All students were taken there by their host-families. A few minutes later our lovely driver John welcomed us on board his comfy coach.

On the way to the Cliffs of Moher we had two stopovers.

The first one was at  Dunguaire Caste. We got there at 10 am and stayed for 20 minutes. The sun was pretty strong and it was really windy and I mean really windy. What we call wind in Austria is a breeze compared to the wind in Ireland.
A beautiful rainbow completed the image of
the perfect Irish sight.

We also saw some thatched cottages along the way and learned how expensive it is to have such straw roofs repaired.

Our second stop was at Pulnabrone Tomb, we arrived there at 11 am. It is an ancient burial site in an interesting region called „the Burren“
with meditarranaen vegetation.

We had  only been there for five minutes and it was raining cats and dogs.So much for getting some fresh air. The road up there was narrow and windy and some felt quite carsick.

John, however, tried to cheer us up by playing beautiful Irish folk songs.

Our journey continued and  we saw many animals such as sheep, cows, donkeys and of course the famous horse Jonny, which used to wait for treats from passers by next to the street – but it’s now fenced off, the poor thing.

Then we finally arrived at the Cliffs of Moher, we simply LOVED that place. 

It was like a miracle that the sun had come out, so we were able to take some amazing photos at this breathtaking viewpoint.

These cliffs  are the most famous ones in Ireland. They are located on the south west coast in County Clare. In the south, on  Hag’s Head,  the cliffs have a height of 120 meters and in the north, at O’Brien’s Tower  they are 214 meters high. The spectacular cliffs lie between the settlements of Doolin and Liscannor. O'Brien’s Tower ,which is the highest point at the cliffs, was built by Sir Cornelius O’Brien in 1835. About 30 species of birds can be found in that area, a total of around 30,000 birds are said to be flying  around there.

The Cliffs of Moher are not the highest cliffs in Ireland. The Slieve League Cliffs in Donegal and the Croagham Cliffs on Achill Island are each over 600m high.

On our way home we drove through Doolin Pier, it’s a little village at the bottom of the cliffs and has an amazing beach. Unfortunately we could only stay there for 30 minutes. The sea was gigantic, huge waves kept rolling in, breaking on the rocks and spraying us landlocked Austrians.

                                              

Our last stop was at the Baby Cliffs, it was just a little photo-stop. We had the least time there, only 10 minutes and it was beautiful. For our bad it started to rain again and we made our way back home to Galway.